Systems for selling assets online are known in the art. Such systems typically provide an auction or a marketplace architecture where sellers can post assets for sale and buyers can bid on those assets. In an auction environment, a finish time will be provided and the buyer offering the highest amount for the item at that time will be awarded the lot. In an online marketplace, additional variables can be specified, such as delivery dates, quantities, and prices, and sellers can post items for sale to the highest bidder.
In the energy market, the online marketplace is used to sell oil and gas at all locations along the production route except the wellhead. Online sales of wellhead production have not been offered in an online environment because such assets can not be integrated into existing online marketplaces for numerous reasons. One reason is that the owners of such production have a business relationship with purchasers of such production. The number of purchasers tends to be very small, such that business alliances may have been forged, personal relationships may have developed, or other ways of identifying potential purchasers of such products may have been implemented. Likewise, the large number of variables in such wellhead production does not allow such oil and gas to be integrated into the existing oil and gas marketplaces.
For example, power companies and industries typically wish to purchase oil and gas in a usable state. For example, gas is typically purchased as delivered through a pipeline. In contrast, the oil and gas produced at the wellhead will require additional refining and processing in order to be usable. The large number of grades, transportation modes for transporting such wellhead oil and gas, particularly oil, and the need for refining and processing significantly complicate the purchase of such wellhead resources, and further prevent their integration into existing energy resource marketplaces.